


It's Not 1700 (in this time zone)

by ShadowsOffense



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Identity, Introspection, Post-Episode: s01e14 T.A.H.I.T.I., Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Episode: s01e16 End of the Beginning, Spies & Secret Agents, Tahiti is a Magical Place, Temporary Character Death, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 02:32:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1763017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsOffense/pseuds/ShadowsOffense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But Phil didn’t go on a magical vacation to Tahiti either, so it all works out.  Except... (please, please, let me die) ...it really doesn’t.  OR Coulson lives on a plane that almost never touches the ground so, if he wants to go to a bar, sometimes day drinking is the only answer.</p><p>Part 1 is set sometime between Agents of SHIELD episodes 11 and 16 (aka before Winter Soldier, after T.A.H.I.T.I.).  Part 2 is sometime after the end of AoS season 1, in a more comic universe cannon future, no spoilers for the movie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not 1700 (in this time zone)

They stopped the Bus for gas in upstate New York. There were a few vacation homes, giant sprawling manors, in the area, but, mostly, what surrounded them were rural farms. No towns. It was as in the middle of nowhere as SHIELD could set up, without actually being in _nowhere_ itself. Here, the locals were just barely far enough away that they didn’t notice SHIELD’s sparse comings and goings overly much, but close enough that no one else wondered why there was human activity in a completely unpopulated area.

Leaving May in charge of the refuel and Ward babysitting the junior agents (not too tasking since Phil wasn’t even sure the rest of the team had noticed that they had landed, given that it was something happening outside of the lab and offline) Phil (notably not Agent Coulson) drove the 37 minutes to the nearest bar. He had a bar in his office on the Bus, but everything on the Bus was SHIELD. And Phil wanted a bit of distance from SHIELD. For two reasons.

The first was that the Clairvoyant might be watching. 

It was always a delicate balance creating slight fractures in his loyalty to SHIELD. The Clairvoyant was too clever to think Coulson could be turned, but weakened slightly so he’d hold something back from his superiors or be willing to share tiny bits of information for the greater good if Phil believed the Clairvoyant could achieve something SHIELD could not? That was very believable. There were, in fact, protocols in place for doing just that. 

He wouldn’t be using them in this case.

However, they had already tried to get to him, when they had had him strapped to the table and were picking Phil’s mind apart. _Don’t you want to know what was done to you?_ the woman had asked him. So it was working. And Phil was a good enough agent to be able to let them see he was compromised without actually letting them exploit it. Parts of the truth were always better than a lie. Which brought him to his second reason:

The second reason he was driving to the bar was that Phil wanted a bit of distance from SHIELD. 

He was taking a page out of Natasha’s infiltration tactics. The Clairvoyant might be able to perceive a deception, so Phil wasn’t using any. The fractures he was letting the Clairvoyant see were real. They just didn’t matter. And Phil, Agent Coulson, wouldn’t have been showing them, exposing them, poking at them with a sharp stick (risking so much self-inflicted pain, risking becoming compromised in actuality) if it were not for the benefit of his audience. 

It was always a delicate balance. 

Phil arrived at the bar about ten minutes after he started feeling like he could really use that drink. He frowned slightly as he pulled into the gravel parking lot and, finally, carefully parked beside a rather beat up bike. Most bikers were as protective of their vehicles as he was, but that varied by individual. Still, it was the best he could do for Lola (and she could take care of herself anyway).

Loosening his tie, a necessary evil, Phil headed into the bar. His suit stood out from the denim and leather, but that was alright, the vacation homes gave him enough cover. 

“Can I get a glass of whatever’s on tap?” he asked as he took a seat at the bar.

“Rough day at the office?” there was genuine curiosity mixed into the quip about his clothing from the bartender. 

“I just needed some space,” Phil smiled, polite and empty, and turned his attention to his drink as fast as it was handed to him, effectively shutting down the conversation. No one wanted to butt into what sounded like a domestic dispute in the lives of people who wore suits on vacation (Phil knew what he was talking about after having been forced to have been the man in that position during the ops on Stark). And, just incase anyone was still curious, Phil slumped a little, keeping a light tension in his shoulders, and deliberately projecting that he wanted to be left alone with all the body language under his command. 

In truth, if a bar fight had started up, Phil wouldn’t have been opposed to breaking a few heads. Or even just having a loud argument. But that didn’t fit with his cover. Phil sighed. Being left alone with his thoughts was not ideal, although the alcohol should help numb them.

He supposed his last reason for not drinking on the Bus was that Phil didn’t want to drink alone any more than he could afford to drink with people that would expect him to talk, but that he couldn’t afford to fully trust (with his secrets, not with his life).

Phil took a sip of the, surprisingly not too terrible, drink and let his memories come to him as they would, since there seemed to be no stopping them without the aid of a distraction. So much for not drinking alone. Phil could practically see the bright sun of Tahiti in his mind as it morphed into the white light above the operating table. Wind ruffled his hair with an acerbic, sterilizing edge. Then there was no beach and there was pain. So much pain. Phil’s hands flexed tellingly against the counter top and a slight shudder ran through him.

“Alright bub?” a man several stools down the nearly empty bar asked Phil. He was well muscled and his sideburns curled aggressively away from his face, but his eyes were steady and calm behind the lit end of the cigar in his mouth. No annoyance or interest in his voice. He wasn’t looking to pick a fight or for a pick up.

Accordingly, Phil shrugged casually. “Fine. Why?” he replied with a slight smile, confusion bleeding into his words. The fact that he was confused was genuine, Phil had had this man pegged as a serious drinker, not someone likely to start up a friendly conversation.

The man took a breath through his nose and shot Phil a knowing look, raising thick eyebrows skeptically. “I’ve seen PTSD before. You’re reliving, not remembering.” 

Surprised, Phil struggled not to blink. For the first time in a long time, it looked like someone was actually seeing through Phil’s bland persona. _I haven’t suffered a trauma_ was on the tip of Phil’s tongue, but there was no point in a lie that wouldn’t be believed. Instead, he sucked in a breath of his own and asked, “You were in the war?” as if he hadn’t noticed the dog tags around the man’s neck. They actually still had active combat troops in Afghanistan, but the war had officially ended shortly after Ironman had gotten involved, so Phil spoke as if the fighting was past tense. His tone sounded mildly curious, deflecting the conversation as if he was the one who had been deflected.

Surprisingly, the man grunted and said, “I’m offering to listen, not talk.”

So far Phil hadn’t confirmed anything, his tone more humoring than not, and this man was plowing passed all that, setting off alarms in Agent Coulson’s head. “Nothing to talk about,” Phil responded, making an effort to sound earnest. But as the words left his mouth a traitorous part of his mind remembered saying, _please let me die, please, please, let me die_ and Phil couldn’t pay attention to anything else for a long moment. He ground his teeth together. _Fuck._ He didn’t have back up here.

“Whatever, bub.” The stranger, who was far too perceptive, turned back to his drink. “Try not to break anyone when you implode.”

“Excuse me.” Phil left his own drink behind and walked back outside.

He only relaxed slightly when he made it into Lola without being shot at. He wasn’t even sure if he had been made or if the guy was just a concerned stranger and Phil was that far from top form. Off enough that _anyone_ could see. But Phil was not imploding. He was not.

He could handle this without everyone pushing him to talk, god damnit. Melinda, the Clairvoyant, some random guy in a bar. Even if any of them were genuinely trying to help, Phil didn’t need sympathy and that was all anyone had to offer. _Unless someone else has come back to life, there is literally no one who can understand._ Phil hadn’t even wanted to come back.

He didn’t know what to think about that.

The truth was too dangerous to tell anyway, with SHIELD and the Clairvoyant (probably even right at that very moment) watching. So no, Phil did not want to open up; he had just wanted to get a drink and then get back to doing what mattered. Back to work.

Well, he’d had his drink.

Phil took a deep breath and started Lola, sliding back into being Agent Coulson as he drove an hour and a half back to the Bus, being very, very careful to watch for a tail.

* * *

Phil walked with Pepper to the post-mission Avengers’ dinner/party that was as impromptu as the mission itself. Being friends with Ms. Potts occasionally pulled him back into contact with the team, it would be rude not to go since he was already _there_ , and Phil was glad (and annoyed by turns) of it. Glad to have that much more of his old contacts, old life, back.

Hopefully they wouldn’t make a fuss about him being alive this time; he only got snarky remarks about it about half the time they saw him, now. Besides, everyone was rather diverted, which improved Phil’s odds.

This gathering wasn’t _just_ the Avengers, after all.

“Excuse me.” Phil peeled off for the bar before they joined the crowd and Pepper was happy to let him go, her eyes already on Stark, who had taken a few good hits in the battle. Phil supposed he would need to check in with the hosts (all the Avengers, individually) a bit later, when everyone was less busy with the newcomers.

Phil had to dodge around several people, one of whom _had a purple dragon-shaped alien on her shoulder_ , before he reached the man at the end of the bar. A man who was practically hiding byway of the anti-social air he was projecting. 

Phil ignored that and took the seat next to him. “So,” Phil began. “Dying.”

He got a raised eyebrow in profile as a response.

Phil laughed and it was only slightly bitter. “And to think I didn’t think anyone would understand what I was going through.”

“Kids never do.”

 _Kids._ Phil supposed everyone was young compared to this man (purportedly, their intel was sketchy). “I guess so.” Phil nodded and stood up again. “Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you. For what you tried to do.”

“Don’t mention it, Bub.”

Phil smiled a small, real smile. “My lips are sealed.” 

The man grunted and turned back to his drink. Phil took that as his cue to walk away. He’d been waiting a long time to say that thank you. 

And recognizing who he had been drinking with meant that Phil could feel better about having been so see-through back then, personal crises or not. (Smelled through, whatever. Phil probably needed to recommend instituting a perfume and cologne application program for that. Or turn Simmons loose on the problem.


End file.
